Leslie Zaitz is the publisher and editor of the Malheur Enterprise in Vale, Oregon. Larry Tokarski is a businessman and real estate developer with strong connections to Salem.

On Sept. 17, the Salem Reporter will go live with Zaitz as CEO and editor and three full-time reporters who will cover “local government, schools, business, nonprofits and state government,” according to a press release.

Zaitz isn’t revealing the amount of Tokarski’s investment to get the Salem Reporter up and running, but Zaitz expects the for-profit site, which will have a paywall, to be subscriber-funded.

“You have to pay to get the news,” he said.

A monthly subscription will cost $10 and a yearly subscription will cost $100. The Reporter will accept advertising, and Zaitz is looking at founding sponsorships, “but I forecast zero dollars from either one of those.”

...The new reporters — Rachel Alexander, Aubrey Wieber and Troy Brynelson — will move into their new office Aug. 13, and will have a month to get up and running.

In figuring out what the Reporter will cover, Zaitz sat down with a whiteboard and started sketching things out, he said, based on his own experience and judgment. He hasn’t modeled the Reporter after anything, and he isn’t worried about the other media in town, which include the daily Statesman Journal, the Salem Weekly and the Salem Business Journal.

So how will the Reporter be different? Zaitz isn't worrying about that. The Reporter won’t choose what it covers based on holes left by other media outlets, he said.

“I’m pretending there’s no other media there, let’s put it that way,” he said. “Otherwise you handcuff yourself.”

It'll be interesting to see how the Salem Reporter affects the Statesman Journal, Salem Weekly, and the Salem Business Journal. There's a rumor that the Statesman Journal will stop print publication in 2019.If that happens, the Salem Reporter will have a head start on becoming the online news leader in this town, making it more difficult for the Statesman Journal to hold onto subscribers.

Seemingly Salem Weekly and the Salem Business Journal will be less affected by the Salem Reporter, since both are free publications that don't rely much on subscriptions.

The price of $100 a year, or $10 a month, for a Salem Reporter subscription strikes me as a pretty good deal.

A new subscriber to the Statesman Journal pays $22 a month after an introductory rate expires, while old subscribers pay an outrageous $59 a month, the last time I wrote about this.

My main concern about the Salem Reporter is how Larry Tokarski's funding of it might affect news coverage, given Tokarski's conservative leaning.

“Les has complete control over the editorial content of Salem Reporter. I won’t participate in or be consulted about story selection, framing or decisions. The independence of Salem Reporter is essential to guarantee its credibility. I trust Les to establish and guard that credibility.” – Larry Tokarski.

Given Zaitz's long experience in journalism, I suspect he wouldn't have taken the job of Salem Reporter CEO/editor without an assurance that he'll have free rein in covering local news.

Meaning, without a conservative slant. Or any slant. The Poynter story concludes with some encouraging words.

He [Zaitz] is using experience from 45 years of reporting, he said. And from that time he thinks only two things really matter.

“One, content is everything. We have to deliver quality news that serves the local community and not be worried about the clicks, not be worried about having some cat video go viral because it brings people to the site.”

The other: credibility.

Zaitz wants to know, when he retires (again), that he tried to do everything he could to help journalism and society.

“I expect this will work,” he said. “If it doesn’t, at least I tried. I didn’t just sit back and chip my teeth and bemoan bad fortunes.”

FURTHER UPDATE: I just forked out $100 for a year's subscription to Salem Reporter because I want this venture to succeed. I also contribute $10 a month to Salem Weekly, and have a Statesman Journal subscription, plus I read the Salem Business Journal every month.

I want more and better reporting of local news here in Salem. The more competition, and also some cooperation, between various news outlets -- and this includes bloggers like me -- is good for our town.

Yeah, it's kind of weird that after I've written critically about Larry Tokarski, and even got a warning letter from his attorney after Salem Weekly published an opinion piece I wrote about his Creekside development, I'm now paying a hundred bucks a year to a company that Tokarski provided start-up money for.

Larry Tokarski and Les Zaitz, plus their reporters, are doing something good with Salem Reporter. Progressives like me shouldn't recoil from supporting this online news source just because Tokarski is a backer of it.

May 28, 2018

The Statesman Journal is doing a poor job of reporting on local news here in Salem. But what's the alternative? Well, an opinion piece in The Guardian is about how people in East Lansing, Michigan formed a local paper, East Lansing Info.

About a decade ago, my historic neighborhood was facing the possibility of a giant commercial development being built just down the hill from us by a company known to have a troubled history. Worried about our way of life, the president of my neighborhood association and I started going to city council meetings.

Watching our city government came as something of a shock. While the policies were consistently liberal – in favor of the arts, the environment, and the unions – the behaviors were troubling. We saw cronyism, unmanaged conflicts of interest, and a general attitude that citizens are at best naive bores.

...So I did something I never thought I’d do. I used my skills as a professional historian and mainstream writer to become a local investigative reporter. Then, in 2014, I assembled a board and created a foundation to bring in donations from our community to provide news, hiring regular citizens and teaching them how to be local reporters. That neighborhood president I teamed up with a decade ago? Today, Ann Nichols is the managing editor of our organization, East Lansing Info. We’ve had 110 citizens report for us so far.

I really like this idea.

The East Lansing Info is a non-profit organization run by a board of directors. The paper is free to read online. Some reporters choose to be paid; others write stories for free. Donations and voluntary subscriptions support what I assume are paid staff: editors and technical people who keep the web site running. The paper's People page gives more details.

I've thought about this notion before. It struck me that one hangup with making it happen was the complexity of fashioning the software needed to keep a local news web site up and running.

The East Lansing Info uses Drupal software, whatever the heck that is. More comprehensible to me is the software used by the Institute for Nonprofit News, an organization I learned about by scrolling to the bottom of the East Lansing Info home page and noting that the paper is a member of it.

I can envision Salem Weekly, our town's alternative paper, morphing into a local news nonprofit along the lines of the East Lansing Info. I like what the Michigan paper is doing, aside from their decision to avoid editorializing.

In an effort to promote community news sharing and to focus especially on East Lansing, ELi confines itself to local news and information (you won't find any editorializing at ELi!) and encourages audience members to consider participating in ELi as editors and reporters. We think of ourselves as a "news cooperative" because we encourage all of our readers to consider contributing news and information.

Since I'm an avid reader of newspaper opinion pages, I'd want to see editorializing be a part of an independent Salem online paper. I also enjoy TIME magazine, which does a good job of "news analysis," mixing in blunt facts with educated interpretations of what those facts mean.

Ann is a diehard progressive, like me. Yet we both have become fierce advocates of non-partisan news. That’s because, watching our city council, Ann and I could see the same thing: when people get elected to serve in government, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, independent or Green, they tend to be human, not heroic. Liberals, like conservatives, assume they will govern differently once in power. They will drain the swamps, represent the little people, spend public money only in just and reasonable ways! What really happens?

Here's what she says happens, all of which I've noted to some degree happening here in Salem with the City Council and City of Salem staff.

Pattern No 1: elected officials believe in ethics until someone they like breaks the rules. We had one member of council who repeatedly advocated for her business from her council chair. That’s not only unethical, it’s illegal. She also took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from developers and landlords and voted on their financial business without disclosing those payments before the votes, as required by a law that very council had passed. But did anyone on council hold her to the rules? Nope. We had to report on it. (She was voted out of office.)

Pattern No 2: elected officials also honestly believe, when they run for office, that they will finally bring transparency to government. But once in, they quickly discover that they’d rather not tell the people everything. Doing so – particularly when controversial decisions haven’t yet been hammered out – just complicates their lives.

Just about every week, we must use the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) to get documents that should be readily available. I recently had to make a formal Foia request to obtain a copy of a handout our city manager gave to city council. This was his draft of the city’s “strategic priorities” for the coming year. On the list of his strategic priorities: open and transparent government.

Pattern No 3: government accountability? Here again, Democrats are as Republicans. As soon as the oath of office is administered, they seem to become incapable of admitting mistakes, especially those of their own party. As we face a $200m debt (mostly pensions) in a city with only 20,000 year-round residents, our council has taken up the mantra: “Now is not the time to worry about blame; now is the time for solutions.” Me, I happen to think a little blame helps prevent more mistakes.

Pattern No 4: And then there’s the cronyism problem. True graft is relatively rare; I’ve not seen it in my city. But what we see every day is how people in power take care of the people to whom they feel some loyalty. This is where it feels impossible to bust in as an average citizen and have any meaningful say in the decisions being made. Those decisions – which in our town can involve a tax deal worth $50m arranged by the mayor for friends – are being made at tables to which we are not invited.

When Ann and I look at our city council, our state legislature, and Congress, what we see are not dramas of good and evil. What we see is the tragedy of human nature. American government is full of a lot of well-intended people making a lot of self-serving decisions. It’s no different with liberals or conservatives.

March 21, 2018

I've got no problem with reporters dishing dirt on stories from another news outlet. But it sure seems that if they do this, their own coverage of the issue -- or in the case of the Statesman Journal, non-coverage -- becomes open to critiquing.

Gordon Friedman, who used to be a Statesman Journal reporter and now works for the Oregonian, chimed in with a comment on Bach's tweet, as did another person.

Here's my problems with Bach, Friedman, and Ms. Matzo Ball Soup.

First, the Statesman Journal has engaged in exactly zero coverage of an important issue that has consumed a lot of City Council time and is a big concern of the South Gateway Neighborhood Association that represents the Creekside area, along with other south Salem residents.

Namely, who is responsible for leaving a bridge over Jory Creek and an extension of Lone Oak Road uncompleted, and should a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District be established that shifts the cost of these projects from the Creekside developer to the public?

So a reporter from a "glass house" newspaper that is doing a spectacularly lousy job covering local news, including City Hall goings-on, shouldn't be throwing stones at an alternative paper that is printing stories the Statesman Journal is ignoring.

Second, Helen Caswell, who wrote the Salem Weekly piece Bach tweeted about, is indeed a journalist. And for that matter, so am I in a very real way. We both write factual, carefully researched pieces, Caswell for Salem Weekly, me for the blogs that I've posted to regularly since 2003 (I also had a two-year stint as a columnist for Salem Weekly).

I don't know what Friedman is referring to when he tweeted, "Lol at all of this. Totally sums up everything that is wrong with the Salem Weekly."

Salem Weekly, along with me, got a letter from an attorney representing Creekside developer Larry Tokarski after the paper published my opinion piece. Caswell's follow-up story addressed several issues raised by the attorney, James Vick. She reviewed a bunch of documents relating to the Creekside development and spoke with City of Salem staff, along with Tokarski's attorney, I believe.

Which gets me to...

Third, if Jonathan Bach had been covering the Creekside/Lone Oak Road story with anywhere near the diligence Caswell and I have, he would have known that this mess (that's the way the Mayor and city councilors describe it) is a highly complex tangled web of voluminous documents, failed commitments, and a notable lack of straight talk from all concerned -- City of Salem staff and people involved with the Creekside development.

Caswell's story, "Opinion run by Salem Weekly is both sound and problematic," reflected this confusion. She basically found that I correctly identified Tokarski as the Creekside developer, though I didn't highlight several legal entities led by Tokarski that carried out the many phases of the Creekside development.

Tokarski's attorney seemed to claim that the reason construction by the Creekside developer of a bridge over Jory Creek and the northern extension of Lone Oak Road was started in 2007, then stopped, was because of what amounted to a "change order" that markedly increased the cost of the bridge owing to environmental requirements.

But Caswell notes:

Although Mr. Vick asserted to Salem Weekly that costs shot up because City staff chose at some point to require a more robust bridge or a bridge with a different design or function, this is something we haven’t seen documentation on.

So it's no wonder Caswell couldn't come to firm conclusions about some aspects of the letter from Mr. Vick, Tokarksi's attorney. Even though there are hundreds, and likely thousands, of document pages relating to the Creekside development, somehow supposedly there isn't anything relating to the start/stop 2007 work on the bridge and road.

Like I said, this whole Lone Oak Road issue is a mess.

And who is casting light on it? Well, it sure isn't the Statesman Journal, nor the Oregonian. Below is what a Google search of "Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District" turns up in the top five results. A Salem Weekly story. A City of Salem document. Two of my blog posts. A post from the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blog.

Nothing from the Statesman Journal, which used to be called our "paper of record." Now, it's Salem Weekly and bloggers who are writing about local issues that the Statesman Journal isn't covering. So let's ease up on criticism of the work others are doing in your stead, Statesman Journal reporters.

November 30, 2017

The most recent issue of Salem Weekly asks a self-reflective question on the cover: "Can Salem Weekly and Other Alt-Weeklies Survive the Tides of Change?"

I'd include a link to this cover story, but more than a week after the November 23 bi-weekly issue hit the streets, as of this writing the Salem Weekly web site still hasn't been updated to include content from that issue.

Which points to the problem facing Salem Weekly: A.P. Walther, the publisher, is marvelously dedicated to keeping the paper afloat, but along with many other alternative papers around the country, the Salem Weekly ship is understaffed and taking on water, as the cover story says:

Our own local alt-weekly, The Salem Weekly, like all print alt-weeklies these days, faces its own challenges to stay alive and well in the rapidly changing world of print journalism. As it continues its mission to reflect the full spectrum and diversity of Salem's voices in stories offering critical analysis and diverse opinions -- especially of those who are under-represented -- will our paper need to change with the times in order to keep its mission intact?

Almost certainly Salem Weekly will need to change.

Since a Salem Weekly paper box is on the Court Street sidewalk just outside the studio where I have a Tai Chi class on Wednesday afternoon, the usual distribution day, I've observed that the paper has had to postpone publication several times recently. This can't be good, since likely some advertisers would have time-sensitive ads in the paper.

I don't have any firm ideas about how Salem Weekly not only could make it through the rough times besetting virtually all print media these days, but actually thrive as our town's independent journalistic voice.

Along with many others, I just feel it is imperative that this happens.

The Statesman Journal is becoming increasingly irrelevant to Salem with the steady letting-go of staff, notably including the most senior and experienced journalists (who, not coincidentally, also commanded the highest salaries). Often there are only a couple of genuine local stories in our daily newspaper, the rest of the paper being filled with regional wire stories and USA Today sections.

The concerns over the switch from print to digital news begs the question: can digital "newspapers" continue to be the local voice of the people and stay close to the ground on issues that affect the lives of its readers? Or will online news, where geography doesn't matter, lose their local focus?

...Can alt-weeklies survive in our new age of technological Twitter and Instagram, Facebook and Craig's List and a fast-paced culture with shorter attention spans and multiple choices? Or will the news boxes on the street, the stack of free newspapers on coffee house counters and our access to what's actually going on in town disappear?

Can print news survive?

My view is, probably not. There's a large amount of extra cost involved in printing and distributing paper copies of a publication. That money likely would be better spent on reporters, advertising staff, and other employees of alternative papers like Salem Weekly.

Look, as a baby boomer for more than 60 years I'm used to reading newspapers whose pages I can hold in my hands.

But I happily pay $15 a month, or thereabouts, to both the New York Times and Washington Post so I can read those newspapers online. The Times has such a well-designed website, it seems easier to read the digital edition than the paper edition -- especially since I'm mostly interested in the Politics and Opinion sections.

It would be great if Salem Weekly could have both a strong print edition and online presence. However, if the choice is between a faltering print edition and a weak online version, versus a vibrant digital Salem Weekly, I'd take the latter.

I had a look at the Minneapolis alternative paper, City Pages. Its website is clean and attractive. The Advertising page has an interesting comparison of the paper's print readers and online viewers.

The paper's print readership is older and has a lower household income than the online viewers. Salem is a much different town that Minneapolis, of course, but I suspect the same would hold true here. The trick, of course, is getting people to pay for an online Salem Weekly, or at least making the digital version profitable through advertising.

Like I said, I don't have any magic bullets in my mind that could slay the forces working against Salem Weekly's survival as a print newspaper. Salem seemingly is a tougher town for an alternative paper to thrive in than, say, Portland or Eugene.

My personal vision for Salem Weekly, such as it is, tends toward it becoming in part an online clearinghouse or hub for the many progressive/ liberal/ activist/ alternative groups, causes, organizations and such in our town.

Every morning I'd love to be able to click my way to a Salem Weekly website that is up to date on what's happening in Salem politically, culturally, entertainment-wise, and otherwise. I'd enjoy finding links to interesting blog posts, Facebook postings, Twitter tweets, newspaper stories, and other local online offerings -- saving me the time of digging these out myself through my own web browsing.

But this is just me. If Salem Weekly is to survive and thrive, it will need to figure out what a good share of the Salem citizenry wants from an alternative paper. I'm confident it wants something. I'm just unsure what that thing is.

On January 9th, a new era will begin in Salem city government. Three new progressive City Councilors will be sworn in to begin their four year terms. Cara Kaser, Matt Ausec and Sally Cook will join progressive Tom Andersen to form what we hope will be a new progressive caucus. Veteran Councilor Brad Nanke, who ran unopposed, will also be sworn in, as will our new Mayor Chuck Bennett.

So what should the new Council do to try to make Salem a better place for everyone? There are lots of solutions to consider, some that have been talked about for years that now have a chance to move up on the priority list. There are other new ideas that are emerging, and are deserving of consideration.

Here’s our list of ideas we hope the new Council will consider over the next year or two…

1) Put a bond measure for a new police station and seismic upgrades of City Hall and the downtown library on the May 16th ballot at a cost $20-30 million less than the measure that failed on November 8th.

Yes! I helped lead the fight against the poorly thought-out $82 million bond measure that was rejected by voters. Aside from the exorbitant cost, another reason Measure 24-399 failed was that people wanted everybody who works at or visits City Hall and the Library to be safe when the Big One earthquake hits, not just police department staff.

2) Create a Salem Sustainability and Resiliency Commission led by knowledgeable citizens who will advise the Council on ways the City and its citizens can work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take other initiatives to make Salem a model for sustainability and resiliency.

Absolutely. We've got to combat the global warming deniers among City officials with facts, reason, and passionate demands to preserve the livability of our one and only Planet Earth. The effect on Salem's carbon footprint should be a consideration for everything considered by the City of Salem.

3) Remove the Salem River Crossing Preferred Alternative from the Salem Transportation System Plan and Comprehensive Plan and withdraw from all regional planning activities on the 3rd Bridge, working instead to advance low cost and no cost ways to reduce peak hour congestion problems on the approaches to the Marion and Center Street Bridges downtown and in West Salem.

This makes so much sense, there's no reason not to do it ASAP. The Salem River Crossing/3rd Bridge, is better termed the Billion Dollar Boondoggle. The sooner it is put to rest, the better.

4) Engage our Legislators and ODOT to work to fast track a seismic retrofit of the Center Street Bridge so that it will not collapse in the next Cascadia megaquake, thus preserving a vital lifeline to West Salem.

Any transportation plan developed by the 2017 Oregon legislature needs to include funding for this. And that plan should have zero dollars for the unneeded, unwanted, and unpaid-for 3rd Bridge.

5) Renew the City Council’s commitment to Salem’s 18 neighborhood associations as the primary means for citizen input into the decisions of the City Council; provide better staffing and budget support for the work of the neighborhood associations.

People who have been active for a long time in Salem's neighborhood associations tell me that support for their activities by City of Salem staff has dropped hugely after conservatives took control of the City Council. Hey, don't be afraid of hearing from the people you serve, City officials.

6) Create an Urban Tree Commission along the lines recommended by the Shade Tree Citizens Advisory Committee in 2015 and empower them to advise the City Council on ways to strengthen prohibitions against tree removal on both City property and private property and to improve the tree canopy throughout the city.

Citizens charged with improving the City's Tree Ordinance recommended an Urban Tree Commission. But this was axed by Mayor Anna Peterson, with the help of Councilor Chuck Bennett, who now is Mayor. Peterson and Bennett were accomplices in the outrageous destruction of the U.S. Bank trees in 2013, so they have no credibility on tree protection issues. Salem needs an Urban Tree Commission.

7) Increase the transparency of City government by ending the practice of exorbitant costs for public records requests, by taking and disseminating minutes of all public meetings, large and small, and encouraging citizen observers at public meetings.

Couldn't agree more. After making a recent public records request for some documents, I was quoted a cost of $407 to get 50 pages. That's $8 a page. I was told that someone making $88 an hour would put in most of the time to fulfill my request. Really? There's nobody making less who could find the documents?

8) Take immediate action to provide more temporary housing for the homeless, with priority on homeless women, children and youth.

No-brainer. Stop with all the committees, reports, and useless talking. Just do it.

9) Work in partnership with the Transit District to find creative funding solutions to restore weekend and evening bus service; then work on longer term plans to bring transit service in Salem up to the level of quality and affordability common in other Oregon cities like Eugene and Corvallis.

Oh, man, this would be SO great. I speak as a senior citizen who is becoming increasingly senior'ish. My wife and I live outside the city limits now, but we see ourselves moving into Salem proper when the time is right. Having good bus service is important for older people who can't drive. Also, for the many younger people who don't have a car, or don't want a car. It's embarrassing that Salem is so behind the times, mass transit-wise. It put us at a competitive disadvantage with other cities.

10) Direct the Public Works Department to place a higher priority on improving biking and pedestrian infrastructure in the city, including more funding for sidewalk repair and sidewalk construction on all residential streets.

It's insane that the City of Salem spends so many millions on highly expensive street "improvements" that do little to help people get around town, while spending so much less on ways to bike and walk easily/safely.

11) Develop and implement a plan for a branch of the Salem Public Library in Northeast Salem to serve underserved children, families and seniors who live far from the downtown library, with support from the Salem Public Library Foundation; consider the old Borders/Book Bin location on Lancaster Drive.

Makes sense. Northeast Salem doesn't get much attention from top City officials, in part because most of them live elsewhere.

12) Reform the Water-Wastewater Task Force: it should be made up entirely of citizens (no Councilors) representing a cross-section of the community, including mostly ordinary rate payers, and it should make recommendations directly to the Council, not to the Public Works Director.

Good idea. The attempted water rate giveaway to Creekside Golf Course shows how dysfunctional the Water-Wastewater Task Force is. Regarding the Public Works Director, Peter Fernandez, it's time (past-time, really) for him to be let go. I'll never forgive Fernandez for making a backroom deal with the U.S. Bank president that led to the killing of the State Street trees. I have no idea why the City Manager and City Council keep Fernandez around.

13)Improve City communications with citizens, including a greatly improved City website and social media presence that allows for respectful dialogue with and among citizens; make a special effort to reach out to Salem’s large and growing Latino population to engage them in City issues.

The City of Salem web site is a disaster. Supposedly it was improved recently, but it's still really hard to find what you're looking for. The folks at City Hall view "public outreach" pretty much as a burden to be minimized as much as possible. Under her Majesty Mayor Anna Peterson, citizens were supposed to sit down, shut up, and go along with whatever the Chamber of Commerce told City officials to do.

14) Create a special City task force to look at compensation for the considerable time spent by Salem City Councilors and the Mayor on their civic duties, as a way to allow a more diverse group of citizens to hold public office.

City Councilors and the Mayor should be paid, for sure. Currently only those willing and able to spend a lot of volunteer time carrying out their unpaid elected position are able to run for those offices.

15) Dust off the Salem downtown “streetscape” project developed in 2012 by the Salem Downtown Partnership and begin to implement it to make Salem’s historic downtown the best in the state.

16) Create an Emergency Services Streamlining Task Force to examine best practices in other communities to reduce the cost of police and fire services that now consume 58% of the General Fund — this, given the City’s declining crime rate and declining incidence of fires.

Yes, the police and fire departments get too much of a free pass from City officials, especially considering how much of the General Fund they get. I'm especially perplexed by why giant fire trucks are dispatched to accidents and medical emergencies. This seems really wasteful. If there aren't enough fires to keep Fire Department staff busy, then downsize the department or change how it operates.

17) Revisit the City’s streetlight fee: evaluate its effectiveness in increasing road maintenance and installing more streetlights in the neighborhoods that want them; consider changes to the fee structure to make the fees more fair for ordinary homeowners.

I don't know much about the streetlight fee. From what I've been told, it indeed is biased against ordinary people, and favors businesses.

18) Create a Revenue Reform and Enhancement Task Force, with members from throughout the community, to consider ways Salem can have the revenue to invest in improved livability in our city, including many of the improved services mentioned above.

Part of this effort should be directed at finding ways to fund above-mentioned improvements to Salem's Cherriots bus service. The Chamber of Commerce fought hard, and quite sleazily, to defeat a payroll tax that would have funded weekend and evening service. Businesses need to pay their fair share in Salem, as elsewhere. Naturally other sources of revenue also need to be looked into, with the goal being to make funding for livability investments more equitable and effective.